Tag: artists

Let’s admit it – southpaws are attractive! They look so regal when they pick that pen up to sign a cheque or when they pick up a cricket bat and caress that cover drive. Stand across the court to a certain Rafael Nadal (tennis) or Carolina Marin (badminton) and you’ll know you are headed towards an unchartered territory; a territory that you may not be very well equipped to handle as a right hander. You can almost feel a different wave of energy around them. Hold the left hand of a right handed person and then hold the left hand of a southpaw, you’ll notice a certain enigma about the left hander. It’s like a different, unheard and unfelt mode of communication. The touch of a left hander would say a lot, for the way our body is cross-wired – left hand is connected to the right hemisphere of our brain while the right hand is connected to the left hemisphere. And that’s why left handers think and behave differently than others.

Just to let you in on the purposes of the right and left hemispheres of our brain, the right one, that controls the left hand, is the creative and imaginative side aka the feminine side of our personality while the left one, that controls the right hand, is the logical side associated with the actual brainy and masculine functions. Around 13% of the world population is left handed and most of them are genetically gifted with this trait. It’s very easy to find that left handers are exceptional with activities and sports that require hand-eye coordination and are therefore superb at ball sports. People with a dominant right brain are incredibly creative and visual thinkers as well.

Apart from the aura and intimidation that southpaws carry, they also carry something invisible to eyes of a layman – the agony of using items created purely for the use of right handers. Try and observe the tiny objects of daily use and their placement around us and ask yourself this – how would and should this be for a left hander and where would it be placed correctly for him. It is then it’s realized how different and difficult this world is for southpaws. Fortunately though, people and organizations are becoming aware of this and are working towards making their life a tad bit easier. Websites like The Left Hand Shop are creating and sourcing plethora of daily use items for left handers and making them available in India. Check it out, it’s pretty cool actually.

So next time you see a left hander, don’t bore them by asking the same old question – “Are you a lefty?” Instead just enjoy their demeanor and feel lucky that you are in esteemed company of a gifted individual.

Taxes. We all pay taxes. Taxes are what enable a government to run a country smoothly. They tax us for everything – eating, drinking, driving, living and sometimes even thinking. We’re taxed for everything. Some pay it lump sum while some like me, pay it in pieces through the year so I’m not found begging on the streets for that particular month. For how much I earn, I pay 3 months salary as my tax, not to mention what I pay outside of it in Value Added Taxes and Service Taxes.

Well aforesaid taxes are what we pay to the government so we aren’t declared outcast or aliens on a land that we so deserve to live on, no matter which country or continent. We also pay a few other taxes of which one is the tax of expectation to our society. And we pay it day in and day out. This isn’t monetary – well in some forms it is as well!

Right from the day we’re born, or let’s go further back. Right from the time, parents either decide to have a child or that sperm gets loaded involuntarily, doomed is that little cellular structure. All those sperms that never made it, expected to perform, died trying – they paid their tax for being incompetent in death. But they were lucky for they had a safer death. The one that made it, frankly never got to do that small victory dance! 5 weeks later, after growing enough, it starts receiving medication and attention and is never left alone. Just enough space to survive and thrive in. Outside that tummy though, unknown to that little thing with no brain, are soaring expectations. Sons will make a doctor, daughters will need dowry.

We are and were all doomed to end up the way we have. Only a few escape the clutches of their parents, only to end up getting caught in the frenzy called OUTSIDE WORLD! The rest pay taxes like me. We’re salaried/businessmen/doctors/artists. That little brain of ours works day in and day out to earn a living. We’re shown the door for being ourselves. We’re influenced, lack originality, and life as I see around us, sucks beyond belief. Mine does. No other example is good enough.

Next we’re married, expected, not to find our true love, but to give the parents a child that can carry the family name. Some of us find that true love, while some unlucky ones get caught out at the hands of vicious wives and husbands. These other halves tend to have their own expectations that are levied without permission upon those super-burdened shoulders. They want your money, your social status, hold no interest in your parents, and love remains unheard of.

Every single moment of our life is built from expectations. Your own and others too. You want to do well all the time. Who wants failures, for failures are rejected. Expectation though means fear. We keep fearing for our destiny and forget to live our life, the only thing that’s in true sense perishable. I’ve done this for 30 years everyday and every single minute and find it extremely tough to pull out that magical moment from a work day, to pull out of this vicious loop that I’ve gotten into.

And so I write. I write to vent it all out. But watching all of those who wish to earn through writing, I am tempted everyday. I want to raise my expectations from my blog. I want to raise my expectations from a solitary talent called writing. I want to do this everyday and every minute. But am I good enough? I fear for my destiny. I fear the unknown. I fear that I may lose all that I possess. My possessions matter. They’re there from sheer hard work. Day in and day out of doing something I hate from the core of my heart. Nothing I do during my day makes any sense. There is no satisfaction.

I want to earn more money. I want to rise higher. I want to see the world. I want peace. I want no expectations. But how do I say it – I can never rid myself from temptations, for I’m human. I’ll fall and rise. And it’s my expectations from my life, that make me brave these everyday storms to remain standing tall and writing about them, talking about them, and sometimes even laughing about them.

The only way I see that I can escape expectations is to let go – let go off the people who hold us back. Let go off the material that binds us to temptation. I may attain peace, but then isn’t even peace an expectation? Isn’t peace taxed?

P.S. – This is the hardest prompt I’ve ever tried! I can really go on and on about it, like write series but it may get so depressing that you won’t read beyond the second half of the second edition itself.

An enraging matter. An enthralling matter. I thought I had seen it all in the city where I live. Protests, violence, rapes, eve-teasing. But I hadn’t yet seen the perfect answer call to it. They fought valiantly only to find themselves unheard.

The pictures shown as a part of this link will exhibit the perfect sense of what women are considered in our so-called “Modern India” and what our artists feel about it!

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen - Sir Winston Churchill